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Laureen Marchand is a professional, working artist. But like many professional, working artists, she’s hit up against the reality that the life of an artist is not eight blissful hours a day of creating art.

It doesn’t work that way.

Like me (and many others, I’m sure), for a long time Laureen struggled with an all-or-nothing mindset. If she couldn’t make art eight hours a day, then maybe that meant she didn’t get to have her art at all..?

Support, longing, and action have been key to Laureen’s happiness and success.

If you’re looking for a peek into what it’s really like for a real, life working artist, have a listen to our conversation.

Apologies for the odd creaking sound on Laureen’s side of the audio. Tech gremlins. Grrr…

The Law of Laureen

If you’ve followed me for any time at all, you know I’m a big believer in “tiny & daily.” In fact, “Think tiny & daily” is Guidepost #4 of The Creative Sandbox Way!

Although I don’t set a timer anymore, back in 2011, I made a commitment to spending fifteen minutes a day making art.

Laureen took this tiny and daily commitment a step further — she’s the one who coined the term “Any amount counts,” which I have branded The Law of Laureen.

Because truly, any amount of time you spend on your creative thing does count!

Grooves vs. Ruts

When you’ve gotten into a rut:

“You have a choice of not having creativity because you’re only repeating yourself, or … feeling like you’re not creative because you haven’t gotten to the new groove yet. And you’re stepping across a gap that’s a little wider than your stride. So all you can do is push off with the remaining foot and hope that the foot you reach out with gets you onto the next trail.”

On NOT Feeding Creative Hungers

“You get profoundly disappointed that you have not followed the thing that’s calling you, that you haven’t fed your creative hunger, and you start to believe that you aren’t able to, you aren’t worthy of doing it, that this feeling of disappointment and failure is what life is really like.

“And it isn’t! Life isn’t like that. Life is full of things you can make and things you can do. Why not make them?”

What Helps when You Lose the Path

“Pick something you like and do it.”

“I knew from the other false paths I’d been on what wasn’t going to work.”

“That seems to be how it works: Trusting that it might not be true, but it might be.”

“Ideas come out of making things… If you’re in the place where the making happens, and you’re making, you’re much more likely to understand what’s true.”

“I think you need to take it seriously enough to keep going. It doesn’t matter so much that what you do is good; it does matter that you do it.”

More Quotes from Laureen

“As wonderful as being a full-time freelance artist is, it’s hard work creating your identity with every mark you make!”

“With a job, even a demanding job, you have a built-in structure and a built-in identity.”

“Having to make decisions about who you are all the time is demanding and difficult.”

“Without process there is no product.”

“I think our job is to be honest in the marks we make, and then go and be honest somewhere else.”

I was lucky enough to get to be in the studio audience when the class was streamed live on video last Thursday, April 20th, and my mind was blown wide open.

First of all, Vanessa Van Edwards is a total hero of mine. She is a behavioral investigator (and also a self-declared “recovering awkward person,” though you would never guess that from her pictures and videos, because she is drop-dead gorgeous and utterly captivating!). She runs this amazing lab and website called the Science of People, where she and her team research anything and everything having to do with human behavior and what makes us tick.

Before this class the very idea of negotiation made me break out in hives, so when the opportunity arose to be in the live studio audience when Vanessa taught The Power of Negotiation for CreativeLive, I jumped at it!

But here’s the thing: even if I had not been in the studio audience, even if I had not gotten to meet my hero and be in the CreativeLive studios (which is a pretty awesome and wonderful experience), the content of the class is so life-changing, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

If you ever have to negotiate (and who doesn’t? I mean, who doesn’t have to buy a car, or ask for a raise, or set a price on a product or service?) you need this class. It will completely transform the way you think about negotiation, and about how you approach every single negotiation you ever take on.

Seriously, in the span of three hours, my mind was completely blown. I’ve gone from feeling terrified and powerless to empowered and even kind of excited. Really!

Meanwhile, be sure to check out Vanessa’s brand new book, Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People, which just came out yesterday! I got a free (signed!) copy as part of being in the class, and have started digging in. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but like everything else Vanessa does, it’s fantastic.

Enjoy!

Hear ye, hear ye! This is to serve as official notice that all links to anything for sale, be it books or courses, are likely to be affiliate links. What this means is that if you click through said links and make a purchase, although it won’t affect the price that you pay, a few coins will jangle into my coffers, enabling me to buy a packet of hard gluten-free biscuits to feed myself and my husband for another day, or perhaps a pen with which to create some artwork. Or perhaps they will contribute toward paying a fraction of my web hosting bill, so that this blog and podcast can continue to exist. Thank you kindly for your attention.

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

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Comments

Lovely to talk with you, Melissa! Even though there were apparently tap-dancing mice in my microphone 🙁 You raise such interesting issues and you lead us all down such inspiring paths. Not false trails, either. Real, true paths that take us to the creativity we all long to live now.